How to pay for things in China as a foreigner

China is the most cashless large economy on earth — and since 2023 both apps that run it, Alipay and WeChat Pay, accept foreign credit cards directly. Link one before you fly and most of your money problems disappear. Here is the exact setup, what it costs, and the few places where you will still want paper notes.

The short answer

If you read nothing else: install Alipay and WeChat Pay before you leave home, add your Visa or Mastercard inside the app, and verify your identity with your passport. Carry 300–500 RMB in cash as a backup. That combination covers everything you will actually do in China — metro, taxis, restaurants, street food, museum tickets, hotel incidentals.

• Alipay and WeChat Pay both take foreign cards now. Setup is about ten minutes each, done at home.
• Under 200 RMB there is no fee at all; above 200 RMB the apps add a 3% international-card fee.
• A physical card on its own works at hotels, airports and big chains — and almost nowhere else.
• Cash is still legal tender and merchants must accept it, but small shops may struggle to give change.
• You do not need a Chinese bank account, a Chinese phone number, or a friend in China to make this work.

Why China stopped using cash

China skipped the plastic-card era almost entirely and went from banknotes straight to QR codes. Walk through a market in Chengdu or a side street in Shanghai and you will see the same thing: a small printed QR square taped to a fruit cart, a noodle counter, a temple donation box, a taxi's dashboard. The vendor's phone beeps, the customer's phone beeps, and the money has moved. In the cities, roughly nine payments in ten now happen on a phone.

For a decade this was a genuine wall for visitors, because both apps demanded a Chinese bank account. That changed in 2023: both platforms opened their wallets to foreign cards, and the setup process was rewritten for tourists. The result is that China is now, unexpectedly, easier to pay in than Europe or the United States — provided you do the setup before you land.

Set up Alipay before you fly

Alipay is the one we tell travellers to set up first. Its English interface is the best of any Chinese app, its tourist onboarding is the clearest, and its built-in Transport and Ride mini-programs mean you can also ride the metro and hail a taxi without installing anything else.

What you need

• A smartphone with a working camera.
• Your passport (you will photograph the photo page).
• A Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Diners Club or Discover card. American Express works in some cases, not all.
• Any phone number that can receive an SMS — your home number is fine.

Step by step

1. Install the app. Search "Alipay" in the App Store or Google Play. The international version is the same app; switch the language to English under Settings.
2. Register with your home phone number and enter the SMS code.
3. Add a card. Tap Account → Bank Cards → Add Card, then either photograph the card or type the number. The card is charged in RMB; your bank does the conversion.
4. Verify your identity. Tap Account → Verification, upload a photo of your passport's photo page and take a selfie. This normally clears in minutes, occasionally within 24 hours.
5. Test a payment. The "Scan" button on the home screen is your wallet for the whole trip. You scan the merchant's QR code, see the amount, and tap Pay. If the merchant scans you instead, tap "Pay/Collect" to show your own barcode.

Set up WeChat Pay

WeChat is the messaging app the whole country runs on, and WeChat Pay is built into it. Setup is similar to Alipay, and having both is worth it because a minority of small merchants take only one of the two.

1. Install WeChat and register with your home phone number.
2. Go to Me → Services → Wallet → Bank Cards → Add a Card and enter your card details.
3. Complete identity verification with your passport when Wallet prompts you for it.
4. Your payment screen lives under Me → Services → Money. Show your barcode, or tap the + button to scan a merchant's QR code.

Which app should you actually use?

Install both, but they are not identical. Here is the honest comparison:

In practice: pay with Alipay, and keep WeChat Pay as your fallback and as the app you will use to message a guide, a hotel or a new friend. Neither one requires the other, and there is no downside to having both loaded.

What it costs — the 3% question

This is the part travellers over-think. The fee structure is simple, and for most of a trip it is close to zero.

• Under 200 RMB (roughly $28): no fee at all. Almost every meal, coffee, metro ride and market snack falls under this line.
• 200 RMB and above: a 3% fee on the full amount, charged by the app and shown to you on the confirmation screen before you approve it.
• Your bank may add its own fee. The 3% is the app's charge. Your card issuer can add a separate foreign-transaction fee of 0–3% — check your card before you go.
• Limits: most foreign cards are capped at about $5,000 per single transaction and $50,000 per calendar year. These figures change; the app displays your own remaining limit.

So on a two-week trip the app fees typically add up to $20–40 — less than the ATM withdrawal fees you would rack up trying to run the whole holiday on cash. Budget the 3% on the handful of larger payments (a big dinner, a pile of train tickets, hotel incidentals) and forget it the rest of the time. For the bigger picture on daily spend, see our guide to how much a trip to China actually costs.

Where international cards work, and where they don't

A bare card — no app — is fine in some places and useless in others. The pattern is consistent: cards work where there is a front desk and an international clientele, and essentially nowhere else.

Do you still need cash in China?

Yes — a little. Not for daily spending, but for the moments when the phone fails: a dead battery, a vendor whose QR code will not load, a temple donation box, a village shop, a taxi driver whose app is misbehaving. Two or three hundred yuan per person, in mixed notes, is the right amount. If you never touch it, you have lost nothing; you can change it back at the airport on the way home.

• Temple donation boxes and some rural guesthouses take cash only.
• Most public toilets are free now, but a small coin occasionally helps.
• Tipping is not expected in China — see our tipping guide — but cash is the graceful way to thank a private guide or driver if you want to.
• By law, vendors cannot refuse cash; in practice, break your big notes at a convenience store so you are not handing a 100 RMB note to a fruit stall at 7am.

Getting cash: ATMs and exchange counters

The cheapest, calmest way to get RMB is an ATM in a bank branch lobby, during business hours, where staff can help if the machine misbehaves.

• Use ATMs at Bank of China, ICBC, China Construction Bank or Agricultural Bank. They all take foreign cards.
• Expect a per-withdrawal cap around 2,500–3,000 RMB and a daily cap near 20,000 RMB. A per-transaction withdrawal fee of roughly 15–30 RMB is common, on top of anything your own bank charges.
• Always choose to be charged in RMB, never in your home currency. "Charging in your own currency" is a rate set by the machine's owner, and it is always worse.
• Airport exchange counters give the weakest rates in the country. Treat them as emergency-only.
• Hotel front desks will change money at a markup. Banks are meaningfully better.

Trains, taxis and the metro without stress

• Trains. Book on 12306 (the official railway app) or a booking platform, paying by card; then your passport is your ticket — scan it at the gate. You can also buy at the counter with cash or an app. Our high-speed rail guide covers the 9-day rail-focused itinerary and how booking actually works.
• Taxis. DiDi is China's Uber: an English app, foreign cards accepted, and it can also be opened from inside Alipay. Licensed taxis run on meters and take your phone or cash without fuss.
• Metro. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi'an and Hangzhou, Alipay's Transport mini-program produces a QR code that works directly on the gates. No ticket machine, no cash, no queue.
• Attractions. Book timed tickets in advance wherever you can — the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Terracotta Army in Xi'an and Zhangjiajie all sell out in peak season. Pay online with a card, then show the QR at the gate.

What a normal day actually costs

A rough day of spending for one traveller in a major city, paid the way you would really pay it (about 7 RMB to the dollar):

A comfortable day of food, transport and one attraction lands around 350–600 RMB, or $50–85. The payment methods themselves cost you almost nothing extra, which is the quiet advantage of a phone-based system: there are no card-machine surcharges and no ATM fees on the small stuff.

When something goes wrong

• "My card was declined when I added it." Usually a bank block rather than an Alipay problem. Call your bank, tell them you are travelling to China, then try again. Visa and Mastercard are the most reliable; some Amex and lesser-known cards fail.
• "Verification is stuck." Re-upload a clean, well-lit photo of the passport photo page with all four corners visible and no glare. Redo it rather than waiting on a pending review.
• "It says I need a Chinese phone number." You do not. Your home number works. If an SMS will not arrive, retry on a stable connection or use a second number.
• "The scan will not load." That is a network problem, not a payment problem. Step outside, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data and try again. This is precisely why you keep 100–200 RMB in cash.
• "Someone on the street asks me to scan their QR." Never do this. Paying a merchant's printed QR is normal; scanning a stranger's code that they then type an amount into is the standard setup for a payment scam.

Five things to do before you fly

1. Install Alipay and WeChat Pay and add your card — at home, on a good connection.
2. Verify your identity with your passport and a selfie in both apps.
3. Tell your bank you are travelling, so your card does not get frozen mid-trip.
4. Order 300–500 RMB in cash from your own bank, as your backup layer.
5. Screenshot your hotel's address in Chinese characters — it is the one thing a driver or a passer-by can always use.

How we handle money on our trips

On a private CHINATOUR.US trip, most of this is somebody else's problem. Your guide and driver are with you all day, and they carry their own phones and their own apps. Tickets, entry fees, transport, restaurant bookings — your guide handles it, and it is already inside your trip price, so you are never standing at a counter doing arithmetic while a queue builds behind you. You use your phone when you want to buy something personal; you never need it merely to function.

Every trip we run is one booking, one group — only yours — with a private vehicle and a guide who speaks English, and often Spanish or Portuguese. If you would rather not think about payments at all, say so when you write, and we will build the itinerary so that you barely touch your phone. Start from our sample trips or the destination guides, read how a custom China trip comes together, or simply email us your dates.

Money myths that cost travellers time

A handful of outdated beliefs about money in China still circulate in travel forums and get repeated as fact. Each one costs you either money or an afternoon.

• "China is basically cashless, so cash is pointless." Cash is legal tender and businesses must accept it. The realistic version of this myth is that small vendors may not have change — so bring a little, and break large notes early.
• "You need a Chinese bank account to use Alipay." This was true until 2023 and is now false. A foreign card plus a passport verification is enough.
• "Foreign cards are blocked in China." They are not. Visa and Mastercard work at ATMs, at international hotels and — most usefully — inside the payment apps. What does not work is expecting a small restaurant to own a card machine.
• "You should bring a stack of US dollars." No. USD is hard to spend outside exchange counters and banks, and airport counters give the worst rates. Bring a card, a little RMB, and your phone.
• "Apple Pay and Google Pay replace the apps." Not in China. Those wallets work in only a small number of places. Alipay and WeChat Pay are the two that work everywhere.

Keeping your phone — and your money — safe

The risk in China is not violent crime; it is a phone that gets lost, or a payment made carelessly. Both are easy to manage.

• Set a screen lock and enable find-my-device before you travel. A lost phone in China is a lost wallet, a lost payment method and a lost map at the same time.
• Pay a merchant's printed QR code from a counter, menu or till. Never scan a QR code that a stranger on the street shows you on their own screen and then types an amount into.
• Check the merchant name on the confirmation screen before you approve. If a noodle shop's payment shows a person's name in a different city, cancel it.
• Avoid public Wi-Fi for anything financial. Use mobile data, or a roaming SIM or eSIM, when you pay.
• Keep a screenshot of your hotel's address in Chinese characters. If you lose your phone, a taxi driver or a passer-by can still get you home.
• Carry a physical card separately from your phone. A phone and a card in the same pocket is one loss event, not two.

If you're travelling as a family or a group

Phone-based payment changes how groups split bills, and usually for the better.

• One phone per adult is enough. There is no need for every traveller, including teenagers, to have a wallet set up — and one verified account is fewer things to go wrong.
• China does not do separate bills well. Meals are ordered to the table and paid once. The practical habit is: whoever has the app pays, and you settle up among yourselves at the end of the day.
• For a family, one adult's phone covers metro gates, taxis and snacks for everyone; children walk through the gate beside you.
• If two of you each load an app, split the load: one person takes food and transport, the other takes tickets and hotel extras. It halves the number of times you are both fishing for a phone.
• On our private trips, your guide carries the payment for everything that is included, so the group's own phone use is limited to personal shopping.

The wallet you actually need in China

Strip it down. Between them, these four layers cover every situation you will meet, including the bad ones.

That is the entire system. There is no need for travellers' cheques, no need for a second currency, and no need for a Chinese bank account. Set up the two apps at home, draw a little cash on arrival, and money stops being something you think about — which is exactly how a good trip should feel.

Frequently asked